Trump Turns America’s 250th Birthday Bash Into His Own Self-Congratulatory Circus

President Donald Trump transformed what should have been a national celebration of America’s 250th birthday into a self-serving spectacle. He kicked off the festivities with a performance that centered solely on his own narrative.

Trump has blanketed the capital with his imposing banners, attempted to attach his name to the Kennedy Center, and squandered millions of taxpayer dollars on events celebrating himself. Now, he’s turning this summer into an extended rally for his own brand.

“You know very well, a short time ago, we were a dead country. We were dead. Now we’re the hottest country anywhere in the world,” he declared to around 1,000 supporters on the National Mall. “We’re respected by everybody. Nobody’s laughing at us anymore.”

Fifty years after President Gerald Ford celebrated the bicentennial with a star-studded gala featuring Bob Hope and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Trump struggled to attract A-list talent willing to associate with him. Instead, he offered another round of exaggerated claims about his achievements while taking jabs at his political rivals.

“The American dream is alive again. That’s something that nobody thought they’d be saying when you went through that last four years of incompetence,” Trump asserted. “We inherited a mess.”

Wednesday’s event was orchestrated by Freedom 250, a group established by Trump to commandeer the celebration originally intended for the nonpartisan America250 organization created by Congress a decade ago.

Trump and his party made no effort to disguise the event as anything but partisan. The Republican National Committee even labeled the gathering on social media as a “Trump rally” earlier that morning.

True to form, Trump spent 27 minutes on stage regurgitating familiar falsehoods and boasts that characterize both his official and political speeches.

“We are delivering the largest reduction in drug price history, with price differences of 400, 500 and even 600%,” he claimed, nonsensically. “We got men out of women’s sports. We renamed Gulf of Mexico. After 350 years, they are 100 years older than we are, we named the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America and restored the name of a great president, William McKinley, to Mount McKinley, where it belonged.”

He concluded with his signature line: “We will make America Great Again,” before exiting to a rendition of the Village People’s “YMCA” performed by the U.S. Marine Corps band.